Remember you’re going to be dead soon…

“Live every day as if it were your last, because one of these days, it will be.” – Jeremy Schwartz

I hope that title grabbed your eye.  Take a second to think about it.

No matter how strong, how healthy, how well prepared you may be, you’re eventually going to die someday.  And unfortunately, no one knows the time they will go.  People who are the picture of vitality and health wake up one day and are involved in a mortal accident or an act of violence. People with no history of poor health come back from a routine doctor’s visit with the news that they have an incurable disease.

My first death in the family was my maternal grandmother.  She was in the process of recovering from a stroke at our house and one morning, she was just gone.  She wasn’t in the best health, but there wasn’t any deathbead ritual – she simply died sitting at the breakfast table while my mom had a conversation with her.  I was only 10, so it wasn’t the biggest impact on me.

My paternal grandmother was next.  Again, she had been sickly, but it wasn’t at all expected.  My paternal grandfather was next, and he passed away during the night.  He’d never been to the hospital a day in his life and at 94 was still working hard outdoors every day.  I was beginning to get the picture that death just wasn’t that predictable.

My mother was diagnosed with lung cancer when I was just out of college.  She’d never smoked or had a family history of it.  Luckily for us, she pulled through surgery and radiation treatments like a trooper, but there were still a lot of anxious months and years involved before she was pronounced cancer-free definitively.

My father died in a routine operation to clear a blood vessel in his neck.  He’d never been in the hospital in all his years and had just breezed through a preliminary operation of exactly the same kind a couple of months before.  He went through surgery fine, then mysteriously died in the recovery room.

In 2005, I contracted West Nile disease and suffered meningitis,  encephalitis and about a weeklong coma.  When I woke, they were prepping us to expect brain damage and loss of function.  Thankfully I pulled through this and proved them all wrong with a full recovery, but it was a very sobering time.

At this point, your mother is halfway through chemotherapy to fight breast cancer.  We never expected this either and likely would not have found it if a bout with bronchitis had not caused her to find the lump early.  We were very lucky.

The point is, you never really know how much time you have left.  The older you get and the more close brushes with death you have, death becomes less of an intellectual exercise and more of an expectation.

No one wants to die.  Even people that think they’re headed to Heaven next don’t want to die to get there.  But it’s the destination we all share.  You won’t escape it.

Sorry to be so dramatic and melancholy, but it’s all quite true.

The lesson to learn is that your time is limited, so don’t waste it.  Don’t waste it living the life someone else wants you to live. Don’t let the noise of public opinion drown out your inner voice.  Have the courage to follow your heart and your dreams.

And look in the mirror every day and ask yourself that if today is the last day you have, would you still do what you planned to do today?  Are the goals you are pursuing worthy of the last day of your life?   In the grand scheme of your life, will today matter?   It might be the last day you have to matter.

Everything else is secondary.

 

Stay authentic

One of the most hated descriptions you can apply to another is “hypocrite”.  The simplest definition for this characteristic is probably someone who says one thing and does another.  Nobody likes a hypocrite.  Nobody respects a hypocrite.

Hypocrisy is alive and well in every generation.  It’s in the rock star who trumpets a message of urgency to save the starving in some foreign country, yet dedicates little of his own money to the cause.  It’s practically every politician, comparing their pre and post election message.  The person who denounces materialism, which admitting that they still cling to their own particular indulgences.

Aside from the undesirable peer status, hypocrisy is just a draining experience.  It’s a constant set of doubletalk sent to your brain, reinforcing opposite ideals that simply leave you without a real ability to define yourself or your  core beliefs.  And if you can get to a point where you no longer sense the conflict, you’ve just developed something of a sociopathic relationship with yourself that can never be relied upon to guide you, chasten you or bolster you.

Unfortunately, it’s an easy trap to fall into:

• You publicly acknowledge the need to help others, but can’t seem to let go of your own time or money
• Your heart calls you to spend your life in work that helps people, but you can’t let go of a meaningless corporate career because it pays so well
• Your relationship is stagnant and unfulfilling, but peer pressure, an aversion to conflict or need to cling to routine keep you from breaking it off
• You cling to the politics/social structure/religion of your childhood, although your ideology doesn’t really line up with it anymore

If you’re in that situation, you know there’s a little voice inside you that comes up in times of reflection and tells you that you need to make a change.  Be assured, the older you get, the voice only gets louder.  It’s your conscience building on a lifetime of experiences that tell you to pursue what’s in your heart.

Make your best efforts always to pursue only what truly matters to you – the things that are undeniably a part of you.  To make the values in your heart the values that guide your life.
Stay authentic to yourself.

 

Persistence

You don’t always get it right the first time…

• Abraham Lincoln failed in business in 1831. He was defeated for the legislature in 1832. He failed in business again in 1834. Hi beloved, Ann Rutledge, died in 1835. Had a nervous breakdown in ‘1836. Was defeated in election in 1838. Defeated for Congress in 1843, 1846, and for a third time in 1848. Lincoln was defeated for Senate in 1855, and defeated for Vice President in 1856. In 1858 he was defeated for Senate. And finally in 1860 he was elected President!
• Thomas Edison built 1800 prototypes until he created the first light bulb. He was one of America’s most prolific inventors, and he was granted 1,093 patents by the U.S. Patent office, including motion picture cameras, the phonograph, and the storage battery. But his inventions included such failures as a perpetual cigar, furniture made of cement, and a flying machine.
• Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, and yet he found it difficult to secure a major backer. In the same year he patented the telephone, 1876, Bell tried to sell exclusive rights to the telephone to Western Union, the leading communications company at the time, for $100,000. William Orton, Western Union’s president, declined the offer, saying: “What use could this company make of an electrical toy?” The rest, as they say, is history.
• Frank Herbert is the author of Dune, the epic science-fiction tale. The book was rejected by 13 publishers with comments like “too slow,” “confusing and irritating,” “too long,” and “issues too clear-cut and old fashioned.” But Herbert was persistent. Dune went on to win the two highest awards in the science-fiction writing and has sold over 10 million copies.
• Albert Einstein was a poor elementary school student. He failed his first college entrance exam at Zurich Polytechnic. However he went on to develop one of the greatest theories of Physics, The Theory of Relativity. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics and today his name is synonymous with the word “Genius.” He will go down in history as one of the greatest scientists in the history of the world.
• Henry Ford failed in business and went broke five times before he finally succeeded. In his first car, he forgot to put in a reverse gear. Then in 1957, he created bragged about the “car of the decade,” the Edsel. This car was infamous for its doors that wouldn’t close, a hood that wouldn’t open, paint that peeled, a horn that stuck, and a notoriety that made resale impossible. Despite this, Ford went on to much success.
• Col. Harland Sanders (the Kentucky Fried Chicken Guy) traveled across the country trying to franchise his business. On the 1009th try he got his first sale. Today, KFC is a worldwide success story.

If at first you don’t succeed…

 

Be rich

I want you to be rich.  Rich beyond your wildest dreams.  Because when you are rich, you will be happy.

And this wealth has absolutely no dependency on your bank account, investment portfolio or retirement plan.

We live in a materialistic society.  You are bombarded daily by messages from TV, movies, magazines, peers… most every source available with the idea that material gains bring happiness. And that’s easy to buy into when you’re young.  You think “if I could just have that car, or those clothes – I’d be happy”.  As you get a bit older, maybe it’s even more abstract.  “If I just had x amount of money, I’d be happy”.

You can validate this in your own life.  Think of the last thing you absolutely had to have in order to be happy.  Maybe it’s a piece of clothing, or a car.  It’s great when you first get it, but very soon the luster wears off.  Soon, it’s an everyday object and you’re looking lustfully at the next thrill.

That cycle doesn’t end.  As long as you convince yourself that material wealth is your key to happiness, you’ll keep looking for the next stage up.

But there are a lot of other ways to be rich.  Ways that are much more valuable than having a particular bank balance.

•  You can be rich in relationships.  A person who cultivates friendships and is great to be around can have many good friends.  Many people with lots of money often find themselves very lonely from the process of focusing on wealth and alienating people in order to get ahead.
• You can be rich in health.  A person who takes care of himself by eating right, exercising and keeping himself strong can have a wealth that the migraine-plagued, stress ridden, overweight executive would kill for.
• You  can be rich in family.  Devoting your time to spouse and children and building a healthy history together can enjoy those bonds to their dying day.
• You can be rich in knowledge. Devoting your time to reading, studying, practicing skills and growing as a person finds that the pursuit never gets old to them.
• You can be rich in character.  A person who is honest, truthful, loyal and shows integrity can build a reputation that people respect, trust and value

The funny thing about these kinds of investments are that most often, they lead to material wealth as a side effect.  When you are vital, knowledgeable, stable and well-liked, the doors are going to open for you to pursue whatever you want.

Be sensible.  We are all bitten by the materialism bug from time to time.  And it’s OK to indulge it occasionally.  It’s good to want a healthy financial future and to have the freedom to do what you want.  But if that’s your focus, you’re going to miss out on the wealth that life can really offer you.

Be rich.

 

Lagging Motivation

It happens to all of us.  You start out with the best intentions and a powerful drive, but somewhere along the way enthusiasm wanes.  Two days into your diet you find yourself on the sofa with a bag of chips.  A week into your big project and you’ve hit writer’s block.  Your goals seem less important and you’re tempted with the ease of abandoning your efforts.

Staying motivated is never easy, but not impossible.  There are more than a few ways to get yourself back on track.

•  Reconnect yourself with your motivational roots.  What inspired you to get started? A book, a person, an observation? Go back to it and rekindle the fire.
• Reconnect yourself with your goal. Visualize the end result.  Take your mind off the here and now.  Spend some time picturing yourself completing your goal and how you’ll feel about that accomplishment.  Remind yourself that time invested is time well spent.
• Make it easier.  Put structures in place to get you moving toward your goal.  Eliminate bad foods from your household to stay on a diet.  Make exercise a no-excuses daily event.  Don’t allow yourself to watch television until you’ve written a certain number of pages. Roll out the red carpet for your goal so it’s easier to pursue it.
• Find kindred spirits. Find others who are pursuing similar goals and motivate each other.  Be responsible for each other.  Find a workout partner, or a working partner.  Have a little friendly competition. When you have someone to answer to, it’s a little easier to keep pushing.  And if you can’t find a particular someone, then work on it in public.  You tend to be a bit more motivated to work if you think others are looking at you.
• Teach someone else. Commit yourself to helping someone that’s at a lower level than you.  To keep your enthusiasm up for your baseball practice, teach a younger kid the fundamentals.  Volunteer to help a coach with Little League.  It really helps to reconnect you to the enthusiasm of just starting out.

Above all, just take action.  Thinking about your problems make them appear a lot larger than they really are.  Agonizing over them actually sets you back, since you’re fighting the dread you’re creating along with the problem. If you’re doing something about it, you’re moving forward.

 

The Right Goals

What do you want out of life? What kind of goals are you setting for yourself?

Maybe you’re interested in being very wealthy, or obtaining a position of great recognition. Maybe you’d like to be a humanitarian, or cure some chronic disease. Maybe you’d like to have a political title – Mayor, Governor… even President? Or maybe it’s to settle down with the perfect spouse and raise a big family?

The goals you choose are not as important as making sure that it’s you doing the choosing.

As you grow and learn to interpret society and culture, you begin to develop a picture of what defines success. The heroes are published to you regularly, the values described in any number of terms. Chances are, you have a pretty good idea of what people in general consider desirable. A certain income level, a certain occupation, a certain caliber of house, clothing and vehicle, a certain degree of accomplishment. And it’s not unusual that you might set out to get a few of these things for yourself.

There’s nothing wrong with pursuing your goals. Just make sure they are indeed the things that you want, not what you think society demands of you. Insecure people (and we’re all a little insecure at times) guide themselves toward flashy goals intended to impress others rather than accomplishments that give meaning to their lives. And especially when you’re young, it can be a bit difficult to understand what exactly you really want out of life.

Here’s an exercise. Write down a short list of accomplishments – 10 things you’d like to have accomplished, acquired or achieved by the time you die. Then for each one, ask yourself “why”? What meaning does this bring to your life and why do you want to achieve it?

An easy example is wealth – most everyone will immediately respond that they’d like to be wealthy. But what exactly about wealth is attractive to you? You might seek wealth for the things it can allow you to purchase, but if you actually use that purchasing power, you give up the wealth! You might want the financial security that you would expect to possess, but you can have financial security without wealth by using your money wisely- and merely having wealth doesn’t ensure that you won’t find yourself financially insecure on a larger budget. You might desire the prestige that comes with wealth, but you must consider that such acclaim is fairly hollow – most people respect accomplishment, not wealth. Not to mention that such wealth would probably alienate your existing friends or inspire envy. Additionally, being wealthy requires extra work to maintain it. You have to protect it from taxes to keep the government from taking more and more of it. Because you have more possessions, you have to spend more time keeping them maintained and secure. You’re a greater target for crime. Your $100,000 car is more likely to be stolen or vandalized than a $20,000 one. If you have investments, you’ll need to stay on top of them. And so on.

Setting and pursuing goals is a great thing. Rushing into a preconceived notion of what you “should” want or be is disrespectful to yourself and ultimately unsatisfying. Better to understand and seek the things that YOU want than find yourself unfulfilled having achieved everyone else’s definition of success.

 

Handling Setbacks

No matter how hard we try, things just don’t always go our way. Sometimes we find we’re just not capable of achieving what we intended. Sometimes the rug gets pulled from under you. Sometimes when you’ve anticipated every contingency, a new one invents itself that’s completely out of your control.

It’s not a great situation. Disappointment, depression and anger are common reactions to falling short of the mark. You want to strike out at someone, find a reason for the sabotage and avenge it. Maybe you want to beat yourself up a little bit, too. Society is not kind to failure of any sort and unfortunately, ego often causes us to reject the support of those who care about us out of pride in our indomitable spirit.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of successes in life. And I’ve been human enough to see a lot of failures as well. I’d like to give you a bit of advice regarding those moments when you’ve missed your goals.

Failure is to be expected. No one comes out of the birth canal perfect. We are all in a state of evolution, of continuous improvement. With that comes the ups and downs, the highs and lows. If you’ve never failed, you’ve never really stretched yourself and consequently, you’ve never really grown. Sometimes when you’ve experienced a long chain of successes, you see failure as a step backwards, or maybe even the slippery slope to greater failings. Failing is not an indicator of insufficiency. It’s a natural consequence of growing to be something greater than you currently are. So expect the failures. Worry if you don’t have one every now and then, because it means you’re stagnating in a comfort zone. Indeed, rejoice in them just a little bit – it means you’re alive and growing and becoming something greater than you were yesterday.

Failure is success if we learn from it. Failure is the greatest educational opportunity you can hope for. The lesson is relevant, emotionally charged and deep seated. The great minds – the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the societal drivers all report a long list of failures that made them what they are today. Make sure when you fail that it becomes a lesson to you. Analyze it. Understand what went wrong and why it went wrong. What can you change about yourself, your life, your outlook to ensure that it doesn’t happen again? Failing to achieve a goal just means that you now thoroughly understand one way NOT to achieve your goal.

Remember your successes. One of the greatest anti-depressants in times of failure is to review your successes. Drag the scrapbooks out of the closet. Review the annual performance appraisals. Take a peek through the college yearbook. Remind yourself that this is only a single incident and deal with it emotionally in terms of all the things that have gone right for you.

Accept support. Ego is a wonderful motivator, but it’s a two edged sword. Don’t let egotistic delusions prevent you from accepting the help offered by those who care about you. Pretending you’re not affected by the problem or assuring everyone that you don’t need any help is just cutting off your nose to spite your face. Call in some of the emotional capital you’ve been building with those around you. Give people the satisfaction of sharing their support and allow it to motivate them to help you.

Everyone fails. Not just once or twice, but constantly throughout life. It’s a part of becoming better than you are now. In a manner of speaking, life is about learning. Let your failures teach you and build you to what you can be.

 

Showing Up

“90% of success is showing up”

That truism by Woody Allen is not without merit. Although you’re not going to hit the heights of success by putting in a marginal effort, it definitely is a prerequisite. You’re not going to get anywhere without trying. You’ll never have great grades in class if you don’t show up. You won’t succeed in a business by sitting at home dreaming about it. You won’t excel at a job (or likely keep one) without getting out of bed and punching the clock.

The real secret to this mantra is that showing up is usually the most difficult step. If you can get up and go to work, you’ll usually go ahead and get some work done. If you actually put on your gear and show up at the gym, you’ll go ahead and get a workout in. If you cut ties with your old company and start your own business, you’ll work at making it a success. Once you’ve made the leap and committed to doing something, you’ll usually get about the business of getting it done.

So if you can find ways to make sure you show up, you’ll be on the path to achieving your goals. And if you can manage to see to it that you do show up – even when you’re not motivated – you’ll see a steady progression toward what you want to achieve. Some suggestions:

• Tie yourself to a goal financially. Pay for a gym membership, and you’ll be motivated to take advantage of that relationship and go work out. After all, you don’t want to think about the money you’re wasting by paying for a gym you never use, right?
• Tie yourself to a goal socially. Get a buddy to co-commit to a common goal and hold each other responsible. Getting up every morning to run can get really difficult when it’s rainy and cold outside, or when you anticipate a big day, or when you’re feeling a bit under the weather. However, if you’ve got a buddy you’re supposed to meet, a little more responsibility comes into play.
• Tie yourself to a goal occupationally. If it’s your intent to learn a new skill, find a way to become responsible for learning that skill within your employment. Volunteer to learn the new programming language, or to give a review of the new business book everyone is reading at a meeting. Volunteer to speak, or organize or analyze – whatever requires that you gain some of the new skill in order to accomplish it.
• Tie yourself to a goal by seeking a mentor. Find a person that’s accomplished in whatever course you wish to pursue and make a connection with them with an opportunity to follow up with them later to have them review your progress. Hire a teacher or tutor. Just find some way to make yourself accountable for reaching your goal to another person.
• Tie yourself to a goal with ego. Brag a bit. Make it well known among your circle that you WILL accomplish your goal within a certain time frame. Make sure your talk is strong so that you will be embarrassed to report failure. Peer pressure can work both ways.

Again, showing up is rarely going to get you what you want. But it definitely is the first step, and one you can control without a lot of effort.

 

Pass/Fail

Goals can be an incredibly stimulating thing. Just the virtue of having a goal, a level to attain is inspiring in itself. Picturing yourself on the summit is the first step to actually getting there.

Goals can be incredibly demoralizing as well. And scary. You see, you’re not always going to make the goals you set. When you’re young and it seems everything is going for you it’s hard to picture yourself failing.

But you will. You will set the mark and fail to reach it. Eventually, you will come up short of your own expectations. And when you don’t, it’s very tempting to consider yourself a failure alongside the effort. And the next time you get geared up for a new goal, the nagging doubts come back to chip away at your solid footing.

A critical point you need to have in mind. Goals are not a pass/fail situation.

When negative thinking rules, anything short of your desired outcome is seen as a failure. “If I don’t get an A on this test, I have failed”. “If I don’t make all-state, I have failed”. “If I don’t graduate college in 4 years I have failed”. “If I don’t get a job making as much as my friends I have failed”. And so on.

The fact is, you likely haven’t failed. Maybe you didn’t reach the peak you were shooting for, but how close did you get? Is a B+ that bad? Is all-city that bad? Is a thorough college education that bad? Is steady employment in a rewarding field bad?

Of course it isn’t. It’s further than you were the day before. You’ve won the competition against yesterday’s self, which is the only one that really counts. And the next time you shoot at that goal, it’s that much easier. It’s really not bad to shoot for the stars and get to the moon.

After all, when you do achieve your goal, it’s rarely the be-all end-all of the effort. Soon you’ll be dissatisfied with the vista and start looking up toward the next level. As you should. It’s not a one shot effort to satisfaction. It’s a series of steps up that stretch out of sight, only coming into view as you gain new ground. So what if you had to take one of those steps in two or three efforts? There’s always going to be another step waiting.

Set your standards high and be ambitious with your goals. But don’t be discouraged when you miss them. Learn what went wrong and make a better attempt next time.

 

The Best Job

At some point in time you’re going to start assessing career options and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of your life.

The educational system of my day did a horrible job helping you through this time. For 11 years they encouraged you down a generalist path, oblivious to the future and finally in your graduating year, they drop the bomb. “By the way, you better figure out what you want to do every day for the rest of your life, over and over , day in and day out, because if you don’t take the right courses in college you’ll never have a shot at it. And college applications will be due in a couple of months, so you really need to know by Friday”.

I hope I prepare you a little better than that. I hope you grow up seeking what you like to do and that you understand the deadlines are never fully fixed. And I hope you understand that you can always change your mind.

But at some point when considering a future career, you’re going to ask yourself a question we all do – should I go to work in a field I really enjoy, or one that pays a lot of money?

I would suggest you pursue what you enjoy, for several very good reasons:

• Money is easy to acquire; happiness is not
• Happiness is something you will seek on a daily basis; money is not
• The wealthier you become, the less money means to you; happiness does not suffer from that disillusionment
• If you really enjoy what you are doing, you will get very good at it. People tend to pay experts in any field very well

No doubt you are going to be encouraged by many to pursue a prestige field. Certain professions are held up in every generation as somehow more elitist, more noble. But unless you have a real desire for that field, you’re not going to find the fulfillment you seek.

Let’s just take an extremely unlikely “suppose” – suppose you really, really enjoy digging ditches, but you think you need to become a doctor.

• As an unenthusiastic doctor, you will probably not enjoy the 8 years of prepatory school ahead of you and cringe under the load of the long hours of your residency. So after 10 years of grinding through something you hate, you take up with a hospital or a private practice. Maybe you have a nice salary coming in. You also dread the beep of your phone or pager, grit your teeth through a daily regemin of patients and begrudgingly stay up to date on your craft. True, you have some money to throw around, but you’re trying to keep up the lifestyle of the other doctors in your field and you never get to spend a lot of time enjoying that money without the fear that you’re going to be summoned in to take care of something you really don’t want to. You spend your days waiting for Friday, bemoaning Monday and counting the days until vacation.
• Instead, what if you went ahead and decided to dig ditches with a road crew? Your enthusiasm is going to make you learn how to do your job better, and people notice that. Eventually you are seen as a standout among the other diggers and they begin to prep you to supervise others, maybe to get more involved in the planning. You find your enthusiasm for a well-dug ditch translates to the beginnings of a civil engineering path. Or maybe you decide to put together your own business and hire your own crew. Or perhaps you are drawn toward planning. Or ditch-digging equipment design. Or training, or motivational positions. The money is there because you’re a standout in your field. You enjoy what you do, so you naturally put in the overtime and the away-from-job investments that are required to get ahead. You are seen as a go-getter and someone who’s going places. And every single workday is something you genuinely enjoy. Maybe you don’t have two houses, or boats, or whatever the status symbols may be in your day. But they don’t mean nearly as much to you as what you’re doing, every single day. You’re not “working for the weekend” or “just long enough to pay off my debts”. You’re living your dream.

Like I said, you probably won’t be faced with such extreme alternatives. But the principles are sound. People that do things well get recognized. Other people who need things done well will pay more for the person who is outstanding. And you tend to do your best at things you’re interested in. Wealth follows enthusiasm naturally.

It’s hard to see this at an early age, because you only see the guarantees, not the possibilities. You see the piece of paper that says a ditch digger makes minimum wage, and a doctor makes many times that wage. But the piece of paper ignores where interest and enthusiasm can take you. If you really enjoy ditch digging and hate doctoring, you need to look at it from a different perspective – where you will likely end up. At the top of the ditch digging hierarchy, or the bottom of the doctor’s hierarchy. Would you have more wealth as the head of a huge construction company or engineering firm, or as a run-of-the-mill family practitioner who’s admittedly “not the best in town”?

And in the end, money is not what it’s cracked up to be. It’s nice to not have to worry about your debt, and it’s nice to have some of the luxuries money can bring. But it’s a poor tradeoff if you hate what you do 8 hours a day, 50 weeks a year. The luxuries are not as luxurious when you only get to enjoy them on every other weekend. A title on the front of your name may pump up your value to some people, but not as much as an everpresent smile and a joy for life, day after day.

The best job is the job that follows your passions.